Yangsan sushi restaurant, Friday dinner set comparison: Shirokuma

When it comes to Yangsan sushi, it's Shirokuma! 🍣 This was my first visit, but it's a place I'd already saved thanks to Instagram and word of mouth 🤤 This Friday, the moment I clocked off work, I headed straight to Shirokuma with a light heart!

Where is Shirokuma in Yangsan, and what are its hours?

Shirokuma is at 11-5 Hwahap 4-gil, Mulgeum-eup, Yangsan-si, Gyeongnam, South Korea, open daily from 11:30 to 21:00. Break time is 14:30–17:30, closed every Sunday. Reservations, takeout, group bookings and delivery are all available, and corkage is free.

Where to park near Shirokuma

Shirokuma has room for maybe two cars right out front! But going after work, of course... there's nowhere to park 🥹 So you can park at the nearby Hwangsan Village public parking lot, which is free from 6pm to 9pm.

You can check the menu even from outside! And during lunchtime there's a special menu — you get a choice of udon or memil (buckwheat noodles) ✅️

Once inside, there's a waiting area, and the staff greet you warmly!

Why you should order your sushi when you book at Shirokuma

Shirokuma takes reservations in advance, and when you book, they recommend ordering your food at the same time. That's because everything is made fresh to order the moment you order, so it takes a bit of time 〰️ After being shown to our reserved table, the staff confirmed our order again, and then we waited a bit haha.

Additional orders are placed via tablet, and we used it to add 3 pieces of potato croquette!

On the table, pickled radish, ginger, and soy sauce were already set out, so I just scooped out as much as I needed haha. The water glass and small plates are so pretty too 🤍

They also brought out salad and doenjang (soybean paste) soup for each of us. There's nothing like a salad as an appetizer before sushi 🥗 And the dressing was black sesame, which I loved.

Premium set 22,000 won vs special sushi 17,000 won

The sushi arrives at the table 🍣 My boyfriend ordered the premium, I ordered the special. Premium is ₩22,000, special is ₩17,000! (Next time I want to order all premium, or try an omakase set.)

What comes in Shirokuma's 12-piece premium set

This is the premium set at ₩22,000. It's 12 pieces: futomaki (thick rolled sushi), garlic shrimp, signature eggplant sushi, beef, hantachi squid, milchi (herring), grilled salmon, flounder, tuna belly, milchi again, salmon, and flounder. They recommended not dipping the tuna belly sushi in soy sauce 🤭

There's already wasabi inside the sushi, but they gave us plenty extra so we could add more to taste. That wasabi... is real fresh grated wasabi... please go easy on it... I underestimated it and ended up in tears...

Oh, futomaki! Haven't had this in ages 👏🏻 It was packed full of crab stick, tuna, salmon, fried shrimp, egg, fried tofu skin, and cucumber. The photo doesn't capture the size, but it was huge lol. I always want to fit a whole bite in but never can 🥹 My boyfriend, though, just shoved a whole piece in his mouth! And gave a thumbs up 😚

What comes in the 10-piece special sushi order

My order, the special sushi at ₩17,000. Flounder, salmon, milchi, tuna belly, milchi, soy-marinated shrimp, hantachi squid, beef, signature eggplant sushi, egg. Here too we skipped soy sauce for the tuna belly 😊

Just looking at it, the fish is clearly super fresh! At first I wondered how different it could really be from other sushi, but there's a real difference — both in how it looks and how it feels in your mouth.

Salmon, eggplant sushi and egg: the pieces worth remembering

I only took a few photos of the sushi, but this salmon... 🫶🏻 I always thought I couldn't handle salmon, and I'd rush to give it away whenever it showed up! But Shirokuma's salmon sushi had a totally different kind of fat. Usually even when I eat salmon I need onion with it, but with this, I wanted to eat another piece if I could.

And the signature eggplant sushi. Wow, hands down, even someone who dislikes sushi could enjoy this one 🍆 It's got this savory, crispy fried eggplant on top? What even is this? Genuinely charming! My boyfriend can't stand eggplant so I ate his too, and wow, I was genuinely happy 🥹

Who could dislike egg sushi? I really love it. This egg sushi wasn't in the premium set, so it was mine alone to enjoy on the special 🤍 The egg is seasoned sweet and decorated with what I think was gamtae (seaweed laver) haha. Didn't even need to say it — delicious.

The milchi looked so good too 🥹 I personally love milchi, and there were two of them, so great 〰️ And though it's not in the photo, the hantachi squid sushi was delicious too. The thickness alone is different! The texture is a work of art.

Adding the 4,000 won potato croquette by tablet

It felt like something would be missing with just sushi, so we ordered the potato croquette (₩4,000). It came out fresh and was so piping hot! The sauce was a slightly spicy mayo.

Fresh from the fryer lol, so hot we split it in half. There's something familiar about the taste, which made me crave it even more! We scraped the whole thing clean 〰️

There's also a receipt event running! Even 5th place wins handmade chocolate, so it might be worth entering 🤍 Anyway! I was so satisfied with this Mulgeum, Yangsan sushi restaurant — recommending Shirokuma for Yangsan sushi 🫶🏻😚👏🏻🩷